Most of the malls in North Jersey, and in the rest of the state, will be open on Thanksgiving evening. Not so for The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack.

While some of the mall's restaurants will be open on Thanksgiving, all of the stores will be dark all day, making it a retail rarity in North Jersey.

Why is Riverside bucking the trend? It's a Riverside tradition to stand out from the crowd when it comes to shopping hours.

The Shops at Riverside, originally called Riverside Square, was Bergen County's premier luxury shopping center in the 1980s and 1990s. For the first 20 years of its existence, the mall closed at 6 p.m. every Saturday, partly because it believed that its upscale customers wouldn't be caught dead in a mall on a Saturday night, the most important night of the social calendar.

"There was an assumption that the more affluent customer was eating out, going out for the evening, and that they weren't shopping" on Saturday night, said Elizabeth Napoli, president of Florida-based management and marketing firm MCandM Ltd., and a former general manager of Riverside who spent 27 years at the mall between 1980 and 2007.

"They typically had other plans, and they had a full social calendar," Napoli said.

Whenthe mall expanded its Saturday hours to 9 p.m. in 1997, the Saks Fifth Avenue store continued to close early on Saturday nights until 2007, a throwback to a earlier, more genteel shopping era, when few department stores were open after dark.

As retailers began expanding Black Friday store openings into the pre-dawn hours on Friday, and then pushing them a day earlier, with Thanksgiving afternoon and evening openings, Riverside remained largely above the Black Friday doorbuster fray.

Riverside historically never had shoppers lined up in the wee hours for deals. "Even on Black Friday at Riverside, our customer was lucky if they gotthere at noon," Napoli said. "They were doing other things."

This year, Riverside will open at 9 a.m. Black Friday, while the other four New Jersey malls owned, like Riverside, by Simon Property Group all will open at 6 a.m.

The three other malls in Bergen County — Westfield Garden State Plaza, Bergen Town Center and Paramus Park — will open at 7 a.m. Friday, the earliest time retailers are allowed to open in Paramus, due to that borough's blue laws.

The Plaza, Paramus Park and Bergen Town Center will be open 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Thanksgiving. The Paramus blue laws also prohibit retail stores from staying open past 11 p.m., although movie theaters and restaurants can be open later.

Willowbrook Mall in Wayne will be open from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving, and then will reopen at 6 a.m. on Black Friday.

The Mall at Short Hills will be mostly closed Thanksgiving, but one of its large anchor department stores, Macy's, will be open from 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. The mall will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Black Friday.

Rockaway Townsquare will be open 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving, and will reopen at 6 a.m. on Black Friday.

The Thanksgiving tipping point for North Jersey malls came in 2014, when Macy's opted to move its Thanksgiving opening time from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m.

With the earlier Macy's opening, Westfield Garden State Plaza and Paramus Park mall opened on Thanksgiving for the first time in 2014.

Thanksgiving store openings evolved as retailers pushed their Black Friday start times earlier and earlier to try to beat the competition. Retailers believe that the first store where a consumer shops over the holiday weekend will get the lion's share of his or her wallet, so there is an advantage to being the first to open.

While retailers like Walmart and Kmart have been open all day on Thanksgiving for decades, Walmart keeps up the treasure hunt and doorbuster nature of the shopping kickoff by not releasing special deal items for sale until 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

National retailers

A number of national retailers have made their decision to remain closed on Thanksgiving a selling point for their brand. T.J. Maxx, Marshalls and Home Goods tell shoppers to stay home on the holiday, with ads that say "family time comes first." Regional New York and New Jersey appliance chain P.C. Richard and Sons runs ads every year reminding shoppers that it honors the holiday and family time by staying closed on Thanksgiving.

Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's and Bed Bath & Beyond also will be closed on Thanksgiving.

Some retailers, such as Kay Jewelers, have chosen to remain closed on Thanksgiving, after opening on the holiday in previous years.

Other retailers have scaled back on expanded or round-the-clock Thanksgiving and Black Friday hours because the extra hours weren't boosting sales by a worthwhile amount. Willowbrook Mall in Wayne for several years had all-night shopping from Thanksgiving into Black Friday and staged "midnight madness" parties to kick it off, but now gives shoppers and stores a break in the middle of the night, closing for five hours between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m.

Napoli, the former Riverside manager, said she was glad to hear Riverside was sticking with its luxury roots and leaving Thanksgiving openings and pre-dawn Black Friday start times to others.

"It lets people take a break, whether it's a shopper or a worker," she said.